Thread: 69 F(ed) body hack

Odd thread name? Maybe. Didn't want it to say 1969 Camaro and attract search results. This is a project from work that I'm sharing as conversational fodder for all us GPF-ers. If you learn something, well thats a happy accident!

So as I was working on a 68 Camaro job a few weeks ago... another first gen arrived for the same kind of work. Mostly fixing work previously done improperly by others. In this case, the owner had done some decent work already, and some not so decent. In either case, "make it right" is the goal.

So let the mayhem begin.

Our story begins humbly. At first sight, my reflex comment was: "Awright, Camaro on a stick!", and heres why-







As you can see, it is jammed full of parts. But thats a sho-nuf '69 Chevy pony car. The owner has already replaced the roof, patched quarters, replaced tail panel, rear window filler and shelf panels, all floors / cowl / firewall, and added mini-tubs. I don't know if the body has ever been fitted to a subframe or front end sheetmetal since metal work began.

Once tasked with the job... first I unloaded the parts inside it and inspected them. Show you those later. I just wanted them out so I could make a quantifiable assessment of the major issue I found upon initial visual inspection. Now I needed to measure it thoroughly.

Before touching anything, I had taken pics and made a laundry list of issues that I could see, and made a few triage-type "X" measurements underneath. I determined then that the floor and tail panel, and suspension and frame mounting areas' dimensions were all in order. Like the 68, this car is also square and level on it's foundation. Whew!

But having spent a decade in collision repair previously, there was something screaming at me from across the room. A glaring problem that would raise the eyebrows of most body guys I know. So I improvised...



Yes, thats a ladder, 2" square thick walled tubing, a ladder, transmission jack, a magnetic level, and a tape measure. An IDJ upper body measuring fixture, if you will. To insure accuracy, the dolly and car were assured to be level as the first step. Then several key points on the body were established as being sufficiently consistent side-to-side, and level.

But what I was seeing was a problem with the rear window filler panel area. My trouble was I needed a way to measure the upper body and find out if the roof was skewed or what. So I concocted the jig seen above. This particular spot on the slab is amazingly flat, but before you bodymen start screaming... thats not my datum plane, its the dolly.

We have done a bunch of these cars and this dolly is the perfect width (4') to just set the rockers' pinch-welded seams right on the beams. It sits level just like that, no shims or fuss, at least in this spot on the floor. The accuracy is satisfactory for the task at hand. But yes, if you lean on the tail panel, you'll lift the front so when work begins, the tail section needs support.

Heres the drama shot, see what I mean?



Get a load of that height difference of the trunk hinges! Oh boy...

Updates to follow, as time allows and as the job progresses. Comments are encouraged, and if you have a question, shoot.

damn who laid them parts in, ray charles?

I kinda just put the tray where it wouldn't look whack for the pic, I'll be measuring tommorrow. But everything laid in place damn good so should be few problems. Pretty much the inner structure and rockers are all thats not new. It does look tight in all new skins. We are replacing one fender and fixing the other. Dude you would not believe that roof cost as much as a good W-body wheel bearing and it fits nice. What a trip. Parts are nothing really, and if they fit good the labors not too hardcore. Times are changing and I am duly impressed. These parts gotta be good sellers though, so they gotta fit somewhat.

I think he supervised Mr T, damn. They were packed in it like fenders and hoods in one of those overseas sheetmetal containers on a ship.

I got the package tray screwed in place and didn't get a pic but you know what it looks like. Did get a peek pic of where I had to cut the right outer wheelhouse. Also spent time cleaning, and fixed the right trunk hinge support where it had been cut off and welded on twice... and spent most of the day squatting in the area shown. There will be a load of these type bs posts before I'm welding skins on. The "bs" TV, web articles, and mags don't show.

No idea, Bill. The new bodies are available assembled and can be titled without any VIN taboo.

Today I blew some time on shop equipment maintainence and assisting others, so I kinda had to hurry and kinda wished I had got more done. But I refuse to rush the sail panel seams. Got a good amount of help too, though. Had an assistant help me handle the roof skin so I could use the drill press to make almost all the plug weld holes and that was a bit of a boost.

So the roof is welded on all around, except what you see here-





As you can see, I tacked in a filler rod to make up a little short edge part on the left. That seam will be so nice especialy on the right side...

IF I keep my cool!

Glad Dynacorn makes the skin this way, with no indent. The roof skin fit very nice. Trouble is, I have welded for a day and a half but ground nothing, so that means I gotta hustle. All I can do is keep it moving, and I shall. There are a few other nit-pick items to weld on or tweak yet, including seat braces. But I'm liking the looks of it with the skins on-

I look at it and see all kinda "Man he should welded that" spots lol. But thats why I did why I did up on top of the floor. That finish does look freshy, I like it.

Backtrack just a little here, to when parts were still piled in it-



Thats two full quarters plus, piled in there-









I scratched my noggin for awhile and measured twice twice. The upper edge of the rear window opening is correct dimensionally, as is the windshield opening. In relation to the left side, the bottom edge of the rear window opening is 3/4" lower on the right. At the trunk gap, the rear window filler panel's face sits 1/2" low.

So its not just down, its twisted. The package tray, that is. And the structure.

My first thought was to cut this loose and jack it up with a bottle jack just to see. But I didn't really see anything.



See the difference in the angles of the trunk hinges?



It didn't respond to force the way it should, so I went in-





HEY. Whats this, a lawn mower part? Dadgummit.



So I cut out that unidentified scrap that had been welded in to patch a rust hole somewhere in history. I was then able to position the window opening correctly to within about 1/8". But the package tray (thats what I call it) was obviously installed in a hurry and mistakes were made so it will be replaced as well. Once I cut off the filler panel, another welded-in misfit at the right end became obvious.



So mystery solved, right? Oh but theres more. Whats going on here at the sail panel seam? Oh, my. They didn't...



... yeah, they did. Cut the middle out of the old one and tacked this to it. Nifty move!



I raised the red flag for a roof waiter. Fortunately, thats OK! So I continued...

---

Uh-oh. Those roof supports tell a smashy story. Looks like dirt daubers might have kept people from ever fixing this thing.











Yep the side flanges had been neatly trimmed from the roof skin on top. This is scraps in the drip rail, of the old roof edge.

---

Oh joy, double flanges to grind away!





When I had a buddy close by to spot me, I stood with hands on knees in the car and carefully but firmly pushed up with my back on the center of the roof braces at certain spots. It appears to have worked and without injury.



Still whittling away the windshield flange. That brings this thread to the current state of the project. Updates as progress continues. As always, comments, questions and suggestions are welcome. I really don't know a thing about the drivetrain plans for it, or colors or anything.

Guy must have deep pockets for all this body work.

About that many! Seriously, I could use a beer or two. Not like that though, yawn in technicolor! I hope to take this apart once only, for coatings, welding prep, and fixes on the structure here and there. The decklid, already on and off a dozen times but its on hinges now. That panel, I can mount by myself.

Today's arguably dramatic Camaro episode begins with 'junk in the trunk. Folded myself into the back of that thing again several times this rainy morning, with the ol' bum drillin hand aching up a storm. Heres what went down-

I fussed around re-leveling my measuring setup and the car's body. Measured twice and took a small breath of anticipation before dropping the filler panel in place. Erg, the car was maybe a half inch too wide. Thats when I grabbed all remaining available clamps and screws (also took a few out to allow quarter movement) and dove in.

A fair amount of force was required to bring the quarters in to meet the filler panel edges. In the end as you see, they drew up OK and are held by two screws each side, through the downward flanges at that joint. This joint is seperate and free from, from but adjacent to, the joint where the downward flanges of the package tray and hinge supports connect.

After all that, the window opening was true to within 1/8". Meaning the previous scenario still exists but the difference side vs side is only about 1/8" at the worst spot. Good. Now I took a deep breath of anticipation and we held the decklid up there...





I laughed heartily. It ain't so much the cars or the guys doing these things, its the dadgum parts. They all seem to have the same problems built in. Somewhere in time and space, a reference vehicle was off somewhat perhaps? I just had to laugh. Because I'm looking at something that is obviously a stumbling block about these cars. Every guy must run into this, the wide side gaps that is. I tried a junk OE lid too, same thing.

So I stared and pondered for a short time...



...then the answer suddenly became obvious and I had it going my way in minutes. After of course bringing boss and camera into play first...

CHOP CHOP!





Can you see where I chopped then overlapped the quarters at the tail panel flange and brought the corners inward? IMG_9998 illustrates it best in the poor lighting. Shhh- I / we just learned something handy here. The root of the problem is loose stamping at the rear edge of the quarters there. The flat eyebrow area was anywhere from 1/2" to 1-1/2" wide, see previous pics for reference.

I simply took the screws out of the jamb's back corner, chopped the eyebrows, drilled new screw holes in the qtr jamb, offset from the old, then used a pick tool to pry the quarters inward and re-screwed into the new position on each side. The right was farther off than the left, and the photos above have the lid flush left so all the gap is on the right.

Here is the new gaps from the top. This is probably close enough to work with on the sides and theres plenty of fine tuning left to do, but...





This pic shows a flaw in the new filler panel too.



This right front corner fits too tight.



This one's a tad loose-



I assure you it felt good to be that far along when 5 came. Not a bad day!

I finished welding up the quarter blah blah blah. Didn't get a pic of the welds at the drip rail, those were tense and I kept them only lukewarmish if you know what I mean. No warps though.

Down at the front of the wheelwell on the rearward end of the rocker there was a mess. I had been stuffing rust converter in behind it all along, and now was the time to fix. It was really mangled looking, I tapped around on it and tacked it before pic to avoid the barfys.



I just kinda listened to music for a spell while playing bodyshop and then there was this.



Then I remembered to take a flash pic inside the front of the quarter looking down at the rocker. Even if only half of those stuck, I'm satisfied. It only had about half that many.



Then I ground the row of welds everyone is tired of looking at on the tail panel behind the bumper. Then I started eyeballing that left quarter...



Big ol wide gap at the top. I took some measurements and established the quarter as the culprit. The outside edge of the notch for the U-seal was vertically flush with the flange for the window fuzzy on the other side, but not on this one. So the quarter stuck out a little too, at the top corner.





So, I thinks. Then I chops.



Then I bent, the edge only, forward.



Cut it all the way through at the top and just set the gap like I wanted-



In that pic, you can see that the top of the quarter now aligns with the door. I had to push it in. Then I trimmed the old edge that was sticking out past the face of the panels and tacked patches in. I don't want to stick this to the inner so I'm being careful and may just tack it and finish with the panel off.. I do have a screw holding the inner to the outer for no suprises later.



It will work out, you'll see-

BAM yup!

Caution! Wet paint...

I ain't reaching in to find out.

I wanted less gap all around that lid. And I wanted the grey stuff gone so I could see what I was doing. So-

Sanded off the grey stuff and fogged some trim black where it was bare, then...

Got out two small Mo-Clamps (body shop sheetmetal pull clamps, for gripping weld flanges in collision repair) and a friction jack (seen on floor in background), removed the right gutter again, and clamped each quarter. Right in the middle of the trunk opening, on the edge. I set up the friction jack to pull instead of push, and hooked it in the clamps. Took those screws in the jambs out again and used the jack to pull the quarters together.

THAT worked!











I like those gaps even better now. Got the gutter back in place and shuffled the filler panel a little until we were all happy with it.

Then I turned my attention to those eyebrow area cuts. I can tend to those more when the quarters are off again. End of the day both sides were smoothed out and got a shot of trim black for safekeeping. The decklid is pretty darn wavy. Not sure what tomorrow's episode will cover.

Today I beveled that corner back to where I want it, added a bit of rod at the bottom of the split, and smoothed the existing tacks-



Tacked some more-



Marked welds and took the quarter off-



These welds at the base of the B pillar rusted off just like the other side-



Nothing new here-



OK, one new thing-



Sanding and dot welding and more rust converter-





A new patch on the left and brace on the right, down at the rocker-



That about covers today's action!

so this is two camros in a row where someone tried to save money by letting the un skilled install body panels, and now has to pay twice to make it right.....kinda sad. but good for your shop. if not for the last two f ed up cars it would be a super slow month lol

Originally Posted by Scottydoggs

so this is two camros in a row where someone tried to save money by letting the un skilled install body panels, and now has to pay twice to make it right.....kinda sad. but good for your shop. if not for the last two f ed up cars it would be a super slow month lol

Aw we'd have been alright, theres more waiting to get in. But since we got a whole other building to just park waiters (and pause-ers that get worked on in smaller chunks) in now, we can handle more work through by having them drop stuff off whenever they are ready. Actually the new building is full and as far as I know my next victim is waiting at home so... theres plenty o work right now.

Remember the owner himself did a lot of this car's work. Looks like in two sessions twenty years apart, but still. You guys reading this thread have a big advantage over someone tackling bodywork blind and pre-internet. Lessons I learn today can help you too if you ever try this stuff.

So... On a Monday, this is how it went-

Got the windshield flange exposed and cleaned out the left drip rail-





Hammer n dolly-ed then cleaned that flange up with a grinder and strip disc after that.

Hacked the left quarter off-



Ran the crud thug over the roof inner structure then hit it with rust converter on a brush and clocked out without even sweeping up all the dirt dauber nests.







Tomorrow I plan to try quarters on.

Holy ****. Glad the Firebird is straight (original quarters as far as I can tell), I'd hate to have to deal with this someday lol. Glad to see it's being made right again